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Trump and Putin at an earlier meeting in 2018 - the relationship between the two heads of state is currently tense.
Archivbild: Keystone
Donald Trump is frustrated with Vladimir Putin and is threatening Russia with harsh measures if a ceasefire is not reached in Ukraine. At the same time, he does not want to break off the dialog.
In an interview with the BBC, Donald Trump expressed his disappointment with Vladimir Putin. However, he emphasized that he did not want to break off dialogue with the Russian president.
Just a few hours earlier, Trump had announced that he would supply weapons to Ukraine and threatened Russia with heavy tariffs if a ceasefire was not agreed within 50 days.
In the BBC interview, the US president said that he had already believed four times that an agreement with Russia was within reach, "and then you come home and see that he's just attacked a nursing home or something in Kiev".
"I'm disappointed in him," Trump said of Putin. "I haven't finished with him. But I'm disappointed in him." When asked whether he trusts Putin, Trump replied: "I trust almost nobody."
Trump also spoke about NATO, which he had previously criticized as "obsolete". Today, he no longer sees it that way: "I think NATO is now becoming the opposite of that" because the alliance "pays its own bills". He still believes in collective defense because it allows smaller countries to defend themselves against larger ones.
According to Trump, governments in countries such as Germany, France and Spain have now begun to respect him and his decisions. Partly because they believed that it takes "a lot of talent" to be elected president twice.
